Law enforcement officials must routinely stop motor vehicles by a roadway. As part of a routine procedure and for safety precautions, the motor vehicle operator is often requested to turn off the motor vehicle engine. The law enforcement officer may make such a request for additional reasons including suspicion that the vehicle operator may flee. In some cases, the vehicle operator does flee.
Additionally, law enforcement officials are often called on to forcibly stop a fleeing vehicle. High speed pursuit by law enforcement frequently results in personal injury and property damage. Often, law enforcement officers will pursue motor vehicle suspects for a considerable amount of time while subjecting the suspects, officers and bystanders to potential risk of injury and property damage during high speed pursuits. It is of interest that occupants of a fleeing vehicle, which may include hostages, not be injured by immobilization of the vehicle.
Known vehicle immobilization systems exhibit shortcomings and dangers to those involved in a vehicle chase and to innocent bystanders. One known method is to force the fleeing vehicle to stop by driving the pursuing vehicle to the side or in front of the fleeing vehicle, or to push the fleeing vehicle from a back corner so that the fleeing driver looses control of the vehicle. Other known methods of stopping fleeing vehicles include tire spikes and eventual fuel depletion. Tire spikes may lead to additional property damage by an uncontrollable vehicle. Fuel depletion often requires a lengthy hot pursuit during which persons and property are subject to possible injury and damage. Another known technique includes engaging a metal structure on the fleeing vehicle and force stopping the fleeing vehicle, which presents a difficult maneuver given a moving and evasive vehicle. Further, road blocks are not easily deployed or positioned and a fleeing vehicle may simply reroute to an alternate path around a road block.
A need for detaining or immobilizing motor vehicles also applies to other settings including border settings, military settings and water settings with boating vehicles. A need exists for a transportable, rapidly deployed, vehicle immobilization device that does not encompass the shortcomings and dangers of the prior art.